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IN MEMORIAM. 



GEN. STEIM1KN IIUOTT. 



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COLUMBIA, S. . : 

PUBLISHED BY JULIAN A. SELBT, STATE AND CITY PBINTEB. 
1866. 



i 

(5 



EXTRACT 



FROM 



JOURNAL OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



SEPTEMBER 8, 1866. 



Mr. Barker introduced the following resolutions ; which were 
considered immediately, and were unanimously agreed to : 

Resolved, That one thousand copies of the resolutions and addresses 
in honor of the memory of General Stephen Elliott and of the Hon. 
J. Harleston Read, be printed in pamphlet form. 

Resolved, That a Committee of Three be appointed to wait upon 
Hons. W. F. Hutson and Wm. Henry Trescott and request copies of 
their addresses for publication. 

Resolved, That a Committee of Three be appointed to wait upon 
Hons. J. R. Sparkman and James B. Campbell for copies of their 
addresses for publication. 



REMARKS OF MR. HUTSON. 



My position, as the oldest member of the delegation 
from Beaufort, gives me the mournful privilege of 
asking the indulgence of the House for a few moments, 
while I offer to its consideration a feeble tribute to the 
memory of one of its most valued and useful members, 
who has, since our last meeting, been removed to a 
higher sphere of service. 

I need not tell the House, that I allude to General 
Stephen Elliott. The entire press of the country — 
the large concourse of mourners who flocked to attend 
his obsequies in St. Michael's — the announcement by 
the Speaker of the painful vacancy he was called to fill, 
during our vacation — the qualification of his successor — 
have informed us of our bereavement. Our mourning, 
though green, is not recent. But we have one last 
duty to discharge. While we bow to the will of an 
all-wise God, and may not repine at his dealings, it is 
permitted to us to shed a tear over departed worth — 
to mingle our mourning sympathies with sorrowing 
friends — and to record, in honor to the dead, and for 
the profit of the living, our high appreciation of a life 
of useful manliness. 



6 



The House will bear with me while I dwell very 
briefly on the life, services and qualities of our 
lamented friend, before I offer the formal testimonial 
of respect which I have prepared. 

I had the privilege to know General Elliott inti- 
mately, from his early boyhood; to serve with him in 
this House during nearly all the time he was a member, 
aim 1 to have been near his field of service during the 
earlier years of the war. In all that time, he exhibited 
those high qualities, which culminated in a world-wide 
reputation as a brave soldier, and gained the respect 
and regard of all who knew him, for his earnest, 
manly and punctual discharge of every duty, public or 
private. 

His early manhood was devoted to his occupation as 
a planter, in which he displayed all that energy, skill 
and sound judgment which afterwards marked his mili- 
tary career. Though modest and retiring in disposi- 
tion and manners, and averse to public life, his capacity 
and worth could not be overlooked, and he was invited 
from his retirement to take part in the counsels of the 
State as a member of this 'House, where the war found 
him. But, at the first sj'mptom of war, he raised an 
artillery company and entered the service. His con- 
stituents, however, continued to re-elect him, to the 
day of his death. 

He was actively engaged with his company during 
1861 and 1862, on the coast, and engaged in every con- 
test for the defence of that line, and particularly dis- 



tinguished himself in the repulse of the enemy at 
Pocotaligo, where 4,000 were driven back at the ex- 
pense of a third part of the 300 defenders. In that 
action he fought the enemy with two sections of his 
baltery at sixty yards. His deserved promotion caused 
his removal to Charleston, and, soon after, he offered 
to hold the shattered debris of what once was Fort 
Sumter. 

That memorable defence will stand in history, a 
monument of courage, skill and patient endurance un- 
surpassed in its annals. I need not dilate on that de- 
fence. The fort never was taken — it was quietly 
abandoned, after it had become useless by the evacua- 
tion of the city. But long before that happened, Gene- 
ral Elliott, having demonstrated its invulnerability, 
was relieved, promoted, and sent to Virginia. His 
service there, until disabled by the wound from which 
he never recovered, is matter of history. I will not 
attempt to detail it. But I can speak of his faithful, 
earnest, diligent service in this House; of his healthy, 
manly views on all questions of statesmanship; and his 
rigid adherence to whatever he regarded as principle. 
For most of the latter years I was one of his colleagues, 
and can speak of what I know. But one fact in his 
history, one feature in his character— and that which 
gave it completeness— yet remains to be mentioned. 

Not long before General Elliott was transferred to 
Charleston, he made an open profession of religion; and 
while there was an absence of all cant, and no change 






8 



in the hearty sociality of his nature, I, and I suppose 
many of his friends, can testify to a very great change 
in many things deemed by the world harmless; but for 
which a sanctified heart can have no taste, and that 
from the day of his profession until God called him 
home, his walk and conversation were consistent with 
that profession. And when the last trying hour came, 
and heart and flesh began to fail, and his faithful father 
asked him of his hopes, his triumphant reply was, " I 
am safe in Jesus." The brave soldier had been given 
the victory over the last Enemy. 



Mr. Hutson then offered the following resolutions, 
which were unanimously adopted: 

Resolved, That this House esteems it a high, though 
melancholy, privilege to render to the memory of 
General Stephen Elliott, lately one of its members, 
every testimony of reverential and affectionate respect 
in its power ; for in him the State mourns one of her 
bravest soldiers — a faithful, true-hearted and devoted 
son ; and this House a beloved, respected and useful 
member, who, with unselfish zeal, brought all the 
energies of a clear head, a brave heart, a strong will 
and untiring industry into the service of his country, 
and added to these sterling virtues all the gentler 
qualities which endear men to their kind. Tender and 
loving in all the domestic relations; warm and sincere 
in friendship ; frank and truthful to all who approached 
him ; and with an earnest, practical loving faith in his 
Saviour — he lived and died the model of a Christian 
hero, and has left behind him a bright example, which 
we recommend to our children's children, and a 
memory which, we trust, will never die, while the 
State cherishes her old love for purity, worth and 
courage. 

Resolved, That this tribute to his memory be entered 
on the Journal of the House, and that a copy be sent 
to his bereaved widow, in token of our deep sympathy 
in our common loss. 

Resolved, That, as a further mark of respect, this 
House do now adjourn. 



EULOGY BY ME. TRESCOT. 



Mr. Speaker: I rise to second the resolutions which 
have just been read. In doing so, I must ask the 
indulgence of the House, if I speak somewhat more 
at length than the proprieties of such an occasion ordi- 
narily warrant. General Elliott was no ordinary 
man. Beside his individual virtues, he was the repre- 
sentative of much in Carolina life that has passed away 
forever, and the circumstances under which we are met, 
to-day, to do honor to his memory, may well fill all 
our minds with sad and serious thought. 

Since I have been a member of this House, it has 
been my painful privilege to join more than once in the 
expression of our sorrow for the loss of colleagues, 
honored in their lives and mourned in their deaths. 
Then, however, our sorrow was not without hope. 
Our grief was tempered with patriotic pride; we 
believed that they were martyrs in a holy cause; we 
felt, as we laid them gently and reverently upon the 
• bosom of the State they loved, that the time was not 
far distant when that "State, free, strong, radiant in the 
glory of their fame, would gather her living children 
around the graves of her dead, and consecrate their 



L 



12 

memories to immortal gratitude. And they themselves 
went out to meet death with joy, in the assurance of 
victory. You must recollect, sir, the touching incident 
which is told of a lad who was borne, fatally wounded, 
from the field of the first Manassas. As his friends 
stopped him, to ask his condition, he pointed back to 
the battle-field and exclaimed: " Don't mind me — the 
army is there, father is there, the country is there." 
So these men, as they passed away; pointed to the 
battle-fields upon which they had fallen, and, by their 
examples, exclaimed: " Don't mind us — our army is 
there, our kindred are there, our country is there." 
But, to-day, sir, where is our army — where are our 
kindred — where is our country? 

And when in this darkness that has come upon us, 
we gather with broken hopes and bitter memories 
around the grave of another who came back to us 
from the great conflict, shattered and death-stricken, 
who lingered only long enough to see the desolation 
of his own home, the humiliation of his own State, and 
then laid down to die, what words can comfort such a 
grief — how can Ave cheat that grave of its victory; how 
deprive that death of its sting ? 

We know now that for our lost cause such a life as 
Stephen Elliott's was a great and useless sacri- 
fice; but for that very reason, ought it to hold a? 
dearer place in our affections. Indeed, 1 use no 
exaggerated language, when I say that such lives are 
doubly precious to us now, for they are our only 



13 



vindication to posterity. We have but a .sorrowful 
history to teach our children. We must tell them that 
in the pride of a strength and wisdom which we did 
not possess, we inaugurated a revolution which we 
could not achieve; that in the unequal strife our past 
power and our future hopes were alike broken in 
blood. Our vindication with them and in history must 
be, that we ventured on this terrible issue in an honest, 
earnest, unquestioning conviction of the truth, under 
the solemn obligation of our duty to maintain inviolate 
those principles of Constitutional liberty which we had 
inherited. And that it was no unworthy effort which at 
the close of such a war had cleared our great defeat 
from shame, and given dignity to our disaster. And as 
we trusted for our hour of expected triumph to the 
strong and simple manhood, the unambitious and un- 
flinching obedience to duty, the heroic achievement of 
soldiers like him— so, in the hour of our reverse, when 
God has taught us, that neither human courage nor 
human wisdom can control the issues of His providence, 
we can point to their examples as fitting illustration of 
the spirit in which we fought, and tell as a lesson that 
shall never die, how, like the French soldier, who, 
when desperately wounded, thrust into the sabre gash 
the Cross of the Legion which the Emperor had given 
" him, lest it should be taken away— these brave men 
hid in their wounds and carried to the safe and sacred 
custody of the grave, the honor of the cause they 
served. 



14 



And the example of a man like General Elliott is 
only tfie more valuable, because he was not one of the 
great names of history. He commanded no large 
armies, he won no famous battles. He simply did his 
duty where his country put him. 

Stephen Elliott was born in 1830, at Beaufort, in 
this State, and was the eldest son of the Rev. Stephen 
Elliott and Ann Hutson Habersham. His father was 
one of the most highly respected gentlemen of that 
section of the State. He was a clergyman of the Epis- 
copal Church, and a large and successful planter, who, 
combining the duties of both positions, had devoted 
himself, with great usefulness, to missionary work 
among the negroes. For many years preceding the 
war, he had declined the rectorship of a regular con- 
gregation, and, having built a church upon his own 
plantation, preached regularly and most efficiently to 
the slaves of the neighborhood. They were both 
members of a family long and honorably known in the 
history of the State. Among the earliest settlers of 
the colony, they were established in name and fortune 
at the Revolution. Without attempting to achieve that 
sort of reputation which attaches to eminent public 
life, they possessed, and through many generations 
maintained, a large and useful local influence, repre- 
senting their Parishes in the House and the Senate of 
the State Legislature, cultivating with success their 
extensive estates, exercising a graceful and genial hos- 
pitality, and discharging, with conscientious responsi- 



15 

bility, their duties as citizens. One characteristic 
strongly marked all the race — the combination of scho- 
larly taste with an enthusiastic devotion to the sports 
of the field — sometimes developing into an affectionate 
study of nature, as in the well-known botanical re- 
searches of Stephen Elliott, the elder; sometimes into 
profound and elegant scholarship, as in the life and 
labors of Bishop Elliott; and sometimes into such a 
special character as the late Hon. William Elliott, a 
gentleman of many and varied accomplishments, for 
many years a member of the State Senate, the friend 
and chosen companion of Petigru and Grayson, in 
their hours of lettered leisure — the hero of many a 
woodland chase, and the model of every Beaufort boy, 
who, for the first time, waded into the surf, at Bay 
Point, to throw his line for bass, or saw, with trem- 
bling eagerness, the great wings of the Devil fish 
flash on the broad waters of Port Royal. 

General Elliott was nurtured and 'reared in the 
town of Beaufort, where he was born— Old Beaufort. 
It was a block-house, surrounded with a few scattered 
dwellings, in the days of the Yemassee wars, and it 
needed strong arms and stout hearts to win acre after 
acre of the rich hunting lands which spread round it. 
But shrewd trade and hard blows did their work. 
Surely and slowly the men of Beaufort stretched out 
their hands and grasped all that beautiful and bounti- 
ful country that lay between the Combahee and the 
Pocotaligo, and along the great water of Broad River. 



16 

Upon the lands which they took from the savage whom 
they could not tame, they placed the savage whom they 
could tame. From godly Boston and pious Provi- 
dence came the crowded slave ships, and the white 
man's brain and the black man's strength worked to- 
gether to send cargo after cargo of rice and indigo to 
the mother country. Then came the Revolution, and 
the sons of the men who fought the Indians for the 
Crown, with the same persevering courage fought the 
Crown for their country. After their hard-won victory 
they grew and prospered. The forests vanished be- 
fore their energy, and the islands that lay between 
them and the sea became tributary to their skill. 

Every year broader fields grew white with the great 
staple of their agriculture — the savage whom they had 
taught to work became a contented and civilized 
laborer — wealth brought elegance to their homes, and 
culture gave finish to the natural refinement of their 
manners. Where the old block-house stood, were 
gathered the homes of happy and Christian house- 
holds. It was indeed a place of homes, for no com- 
merce ruffled the placid surface of its bay, no trade 
disturbed the shady quiet of its streets, its fair houses 
and noble gardens were scarcely less peaceful than 
their tranquil shadows in the waters that surrounded 
them. Long years of prosperity and power had given 
to its inhabitants a touch of no ignoble pride. Their 
lands had changed hands by purchase less, perhaps, 
than in any other portion of the State, and their wealth 



17 



had been the steady increase of the same labor from 
father to son. As in all small communities, near 
enough in neighborhood and kindred to secure inti- 
macy among its members from childhood, they were 
shy and reserved with strangers; but they were kind 
masters, good neighbors, true friends. Active and intel- 
ligent planters; simple in their tastes, absorbed in their 
agricultural pursuits, they found in the domestic inci- 
dents of their households matter for perpetual and 
kindly interest, and rich indeed were those households 
with the fragrance of as pure and beautiful a domestic 
life as ever filled an earthly home. With very little 
incentive, and perhaps less disposition to public am- 
bition, they preserved that strong interest in politics 
which education and the consciousness of a great stake 
in the administration of the country always give, and 
among them, both honored and loved, was more than 
one man whose character and ability had large public 
influence. But in politics they were intolerant be- 
lievers in a very simple creed — it could be summed up 
in one commandment: "Love South Carolina." I will 
not vindicate its wisdom. All very strong feeling is 
apt to run into error by its exaggeration. A states- 
man would call it narrow, a philosopher would call it 
weak, but it was broad enough to cover their lives, it 
was strong enough to support them in death. 

If I have dwelt too long upon the character of this 
community, the House will forgive me. For many 
years, I lived among them. I speak of men I loved, 

3 



18 



of homes in which I was welcome. I cannot forget 
that of those I knew, many a proud head is humbled, 
many a brave heart is still, many a sweet and gentle 
face is shadowed with an everlasting grief. The fire 
on their hearths has gone out forever ; ribaldry and 
ruffianism have run riot in homes where dwelt domes- 
tic love and household honor; and by an act of cruel, 
lawless and iniquitous spoliation, a whole society, 
which, in its traditions, its industry, its courage, its 
refinement and its virtues, represented for many gene- 
rations the best traits of Carolina character, has utterly 
perished. 

And it was in this community, and amid such influ- 
ences, that General Elliott grew to manhood. As a 
boy, he won the affections and confidence of his com- 
rades, and "Stee Elliott" was as much their leader 
then as Captain Elliott was when, at the commence- 
ment of the war, he took command of their chosen 
company. They all recognized his quick and practical 
intelligence, his untiring energy, his venturesome spirit, 
the skill with which he used his gun or managed his 
boat. By the time he was a well-grown youth, he had 
acquired a quick eye, a steady nerve, that habit of self- 
reliance which sport full of danger always cultivates, 
and that knowledge of the country which was to be of 
such great service to him in the future ; for there was 
not a winding creek, not a cut off through the marshes, 
not a dangerous shoal in the navigation from Poco- 
taligo to the ocean, that he did not know. After sound 



19 



and solid preparation at the excellent school in Beau- 
fort, he went to Cambridge and thence to the South 
Carolina College, and there graduated with credit, not 
a scholar, perhaps, himself, but with a genuine and 
educated appreciation of the value of scholarship in 
others. Soon after his return, he married one of his 
early companions, who had grown into graceful and 
accomplished womanhood, and then settled upon one 
of the beautiful islands that looks out upon the ocean 
where Broad River widens into Port Royal Harbor. 
There, carrying out the lessons he learned from his 
excellent father, he lived, a kind and judicious master, 
among his people, cultivated his estate with signal suc- 
cess, and looked through the vista of coming years to 
a long life of honorable usefulness and quiet happiness. 
But in 1860 the State seceded, and in 1861 called 
upon her sons to redeem the pledges she had made. 
Intimations not to be disregarded warned the Govern- 
ment that one of the earliest demonstrations of the 
power of the United States would be made upon the 
coast of Carolina. Preparation was made rapidly, and 
as was then thought, efficiently, to meet the danger. 
The harbor of Port Royal, which seemed the probable 
point of attack, was defended by two forts, and Cap- 
tain Elliott, who had been elected to the command of 
the Beaufort Artillery, was placed in charge of the 
batteries at Bay Point, one of the localities that was 
supposed to command the entrance to the harbor. The 
capture of Port Sumter and the result of the first bat- 



20 

tie of Manassas had given undue confidence to our 
spirits, and led us to underrate the capacity for war of 
those with whom we were in conflict. The summer 
passed trancpuilly by, but in the shortening days of 
October, the people of Charleston, from their steeples 
and house-tops, watched with eager anxiety the long 
line of battle-ships that, bearing the old flag, swept 
past the harbor on its mission of wrath; and, early in 
November, the greatest naval armament that the 
United States had ever put to sea was collected in the 
waters of Port Royal. It is strange now to think that, 
with a year's warning, with full knowledge of the 
danger, the only resistance to this tremendous power 
was left to two earth-works, two miles apart, hastily 
erected by such civil skill as could be found, and with 
the aid of the native labor from the adjoining planta- 
tions, and garrisoned by a few hundred citizens — militia 
who had never known a harder service than the weari- 
ness of a Governor's review. And still stranger, 
that the neighboring population went on quietly with 
their accustomed life — not a household was disturbed, 
not a piece of property removed — and all waited with 
undisturbed confidence the result of this desperate con- 
test. But so it was. 

The attack was opened soon after sunrise on the 7th 
of November, and for many hours the forts were ex- 
posed to a fire which, even in the annals of this war, 
was almost unparalleled. It was very soon evident, 
that all our soldiers could do, was to show their powers 



21 



of endurance; for, by mid-day, the forts were de- 
molished, the guns dismantled, and the fleet safe within 
the lines of the defences. 

It is enough to say, that, in this forlorn hope, Stephen 
Elliott and his comrades did their duty. He knew that 
the heavy war-cloud, which hung upon the blue waters 
of the bay and rose over the tree-tops and floated far 
away over peaceful fields, was heavy with destruction 
for all he loved; and that the noise of battle was 
shaking the walls of homes, in which mothers and 
wives were praying for the safety of the brave men 
who fought his guns. But it was no time to think of 
home and family and possessions. They had done all 
that brave men could do — all that was left to do was 
accomplished — and the weary and disheartened troops 
secured their difficult retreat to the main. There 
Captain Elliott, with his company of artillery, was 
placed on the line of inner defence which had been 
determined by Gen. Lee, and which, under various 
commanders, was successfully held from then until the 
spring of 1865. It is not necessary to repeat the 
history of that occupation. It was a long and weary 
watch. It lasted through cold and bitter winters, and 
hot and sickly summers; but it was never broken. The 
forces of the United States were driven back in effort 
after effort to effect a lodgment on the main land, and 
until the war ended, their power was bounded by the 
navigation of their gun-boats. In this arduous but 
comparatively obscure service, Captain Elliott spent 



22 

many months. His enterprise, alike prudent and bold, 
the unbounded confidence of his men, his thorough 
and minute knowledge of the whole country, made 
him pre-eminently useful. He indulged in no fretful 
longing for promotion — no impatient anxiety for a 
sphere of larger ambition. Where his duty was ap- 
pointed, there his whole energy was displayed. His 
services were soon recognized by his promotion to a 
Majority, but the time had come when a larger oppor- 
tunity was to be given him, and when he was to 
identify his name forever with the proudest chapter in 
the history of his State. 

Soon after the war commenced, it was evident that 
the United States Government would put forth all its 
strength for the reduction of Charleston. This was 
but natural. Not only was Charleston the most im- 
portant port of the Confederacy, but it was the symbol 
of the Revolution, hi its Convention was signed the 
first Act of Secession; in its harbor was fired the first 
hostile gun; and on the ramparts of Fort Sumter had 
the old flag first been lowered in acknowledged defeat. 
The port was blockaded, the entrances to the harbor 
obstructed, and all that military skill, individual 
courage and unstinted national expenditure could com- 
pass, was concentrated against it. It is not for me now 
to tell the story of that famous siege — to describe the 
patient skill of Beauregard, the indomitable energy of 
Ripley. It is sufficient for me to say that days rau 
into weeks, and weeks grew into months, and months 



23 



became years, and still on the walls of Moultrie, on 
the ramparts of Sumter, on the low, dark earth-works 
of Fort Wagner, and along the beach of Morris' Island, 
the sentries paced the line of their unbroken outposts, 
and cried "all is well." And the heart of the whole 
Southern land was with us. The great armies of Vir- 
ginia and the West, as they paused in their own heroic 
labors, listened with proud sympathy to the story of 
the stubborn conflict. Brave men among our enemies 
did honor to our steadfastness; and the curiosity of 
other and older nations, "proud in arms," kindled into 
generous admiration. But the persevering skill and 
courage of our adversaries at last found their hour of 
vantage. The disastrous landing on Morris' Island was 
effected. For days and nights the fierce attack and 
the steady repulse moistened, with blood, the island 
sands. Slowly and sternly the stained and shattered 
works of Fort Wagner were abandoned; and, finally, 
the island was evacuated. The whole power and 
energy of the attack was then concentrated upon Fort 
Sumter, and under a fire, which no human work could 
stand, its walls crumbled, the great fortress was bat- 
tered into a mass of almost shapeless ruin, and it was 
found necessary to withdraw the garrison of regular 
artillery, who, under their heroic commander, Colonel 
Rhett, had fought it to the water's edge. For a 
moment the heart of the city sank. Through sad and 
weary months it had borne disaster within, and con- 
fronted danger from without; but now, indeed, it 



24 

seemed as if the touching lament, poured out thou- 
sands of years ago over Troy, might be uttered by all 
who loved her — 

"The spear, the spear hath rent thy pride; 
The flame hath scarred thee deep and wide; 
Thy coronal of towers is shorn, 
And thou most piteous art, most desolate and forlorn." 

But General Beauregard determined not to abandon 
the fort. It might not be the key to the harbor, but 
its occupation by the enemy would be a dangerous 
advance, and the means of further and final success. 
And in that spirit of soldierly pride which has been 
the motive power of many a high achievement, he 
determined to hold what had been so early won and 
so long kept. General Beauregard selected Major 
Elliott to take command of the fort. At that time, 
he was at the Stono River, where he had been sent on 
special and important service. He accepted this duty, 
as he did all others, modestly and resolutely ; and on 
the night of the 4th September, 1863, he crossed the 
harbor and entered upon his command. To undertake 
this duty required something higher than ordinary 
courage. There were brave men who considered it 
hopeless. Few believed that those ruins could resist 
the force which had so far destroyed them, and men 
felt that the soldiers who entered these broken walls 
and shattered casemates, went there to die, because 
the honor of their State required it. To perform this 
duty required more— it required the faculty of im- 
pressing his own resolution upon every man of his com- 



25 



mand, and centering into himself the unwavering 
confidence of those whom he directed. It required 
calmness, self-possession, and that indomitable will, 
which, by some strange influence, seems to impart to 
the very dead material, the stone, and brick, and wood 
with which brave men work, a power of living resist- 
ance. This duty he undertook, and this duty he per- 
formed. The very weakness of the fort he converted 
into its strength; for when the front walls had fallen, 
with the aid of his engineer, Major Johnson, a com- 
panion every way worthy of him, he tunnelled through 
the mass of ruins, and every succeeding bombardment 
only made his means of communication and protection 
stronger. But I will not attempt a detailed account of 
his service. You all know, that he had scarcely taken 
his command, when, on the 7th September, "Admiral 
Dahlgren, determining to test GiLMORe's assertion, that 
Sumter was 'a harmless mass of ruins,' summoned 
the fort to surrender. Gen. Beauregard telegraphed 
to Major Elliott, to reply to Dahlgren, that he could 
have Fort Sumter when he took it and held it." You 
all know, how, on the night of the 9th September, 
thirty launches, supported by a portion of the naval 
force, attacked the fort and were signally repulsed, 
leaving one hundred and thirteen prisoners in the 
hands of the garrison. You all know, how the fort 
was held until the enemy, in sullen confession of their 
inability to take it, confined their hostile demonstra- 
tions to distant and ineffectual bombardment. You all 



2G 



know, the weary labor, the heroic endurance, the 
steady courage, which stoo'd through all this and con- 
quered. Mr. Speaker, history may write another 
judgment than ours upon the justice of the cause in 
which we fought; the firing of the first gun upon Fort 
Sumter may Idc remembered, in after days, as the first 
rash act of a wild and fatal delusion; but when, in the 
early summer of 1864, Major Elliott left those ruined 
walls to join the army in Virginia, he had carved upon 
their massive fragments a story of Carolina chivalry so 
simple, so noble, so true, that it will forever kindle the 
sympathy of brave men for the State he loved, and 
temper the censure of just men on the State he served. 
For his services in Fort Sumter, Major Elliott was 
rapidly promoted, and, in 1864, as Brigadier-General, 
he joined the army of Virginia. He was placed upon 
the lines near Petersburg. Sopn after his arrival, the 
famous mine was sprung, and a portion of his brigade 
was destroyed by the explosion. While rallying his 
men to the brilliant and bloody repulse which followed, 
he was shot in the shoulder, a painful and dangerous 
wound, which paralyzed entirely his left arm. After 
long confinement to the hospital, he was enabled to 
resume his duties, although with great difficulty, and 
was sent back to Carolina and placed in command at 
James 7 Island. Here he remained until the evacuation 
of Charleston, from which place he moved with Gen. 
Johnson, in his effort to effect a junction with Gen. Lee. 
He was severely injured at Bentonville, and this, with 



27 

the consequence of his wound, compelled him to obtain 
a furlough and return to the State, which he reached 
just before the final surrender of the armies of the 
Confederacy. 

The cause for which he had bravely fought was lost; 
the army in which he had served was disbanded; his 
home was in the possession of the United States armies; 
his once rich and powerful kinsmen were in exile and 
in poverty. In the same spirit of quiet resolution 
with which he accepted high responsibilities and met 
great dangers, he submitted to necessity. He went 
back among his old slaves, and was warmly welcomed 
in their new condition. They would gladly have joined 
in the restoration of his estate. But the policy of the 
Government at the South, unfortunately in that, as in 
many other cases, forbade the arrangements which he 
would have made. At that time, as we all know, 
neither the friends who loved him, nor the State 
which owed him so much, had the power to aid him. 
He removed his family to a hut on the sea-shore, which, 
in former days, had been a rough shelter in his fishing 
expeditions, and there, day after day, in sight of his 
own house, within sound of the labor on his own plan- 
tation, amid the scenes which recalled the bright 
hours of his boyhood, his pleasant and prosperous man- 
hood, he fished, and crossing to the neighboring village 
of Hilton Head, carried himself the fish which he had 
caught, to sell for his subsistence. The sight of this 
simple, quiet, brave man, won respect from all. Gen. 



WLJ«.i iflJIlt *4/-*V^*."-W»]l» 



28 



Gilmore, who had commanded the United States forces 
while Gen. Elliott was at Sumter, and whose head- 
quarters were then at Hilton Head, in a spirit worthy 
of his reputation as a soldier, asked of the Executive 
his pardon as a special personal favor, and it was 
granted. And it is a fact worthy of our reflection, 
that in the election for members of Congress, in 1865, 
the entire vote of the Northern settlers on that 
island was given to him. He was a member of the 
House of Representatives, from St. Helena, when the 
war broke out, and was again elected after it closed. 
From that time he was our colleague here, and I need 
scarcely recall his conduct. Wise, practical and con- 
ciliator}^ in his counsel, he never affected a sentiment 
he did not feel. 

He believed that the issues we had made were irre- 
vocably decided against us; that the interest and the 
honor of the State required that she should lay broadly 
the foundations of the new life she purposed to lead; 
that the sooner her legislation was conformed to the 
constitutional requirements of the Government, the 
better for all her people, white or black. In this 
sense he spoke and voted. Just as he had done his 
duty before, so under the new system which he had 
accepted, was he prepared to do his duty again. And 
to-day his strong common sense view of the duty which 
lay before him, his freedom from all passion in the per- 
plexing questions which surround us, his undisturbed 
consciousness of his own purity and honesty of purpose, 



29 

and the consideration which his eminent services had 
won, would have made him an invaluable counsellor. 
But soon after the last regular session he sickened — 
his constitution had been exhausted by the exposure of 
camp, the confinement of beleaguered garrisons, the 
suffering of wounds — and he died. His last request 
was that he should be buried by the side of his mother. 
He was faithful to us in his life — let us be true to his 
memory. The cause in which he fought has perished. 
The great chieftain whose commission he bore is a worn 
and dying captive; the flag under which he served is 
furled and put away forever; and over his dust in proud 
triumph floats the "Star Spangled Banner." But if we 
are ever to look again upon that banner as the symbol 
of a common and a re-united country, its stars must 
shine kindly upon our dead, and "its ample folds, as 
they float over the sea and over the land," must cast 
no shadow of shame on the graves of men like him. 







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